If the guard did suspect, he might ask for Betty's identity card; then, of course, they would be in trouble because Philip had found no way of obtaining a blank identity card and would not have been able to put a plasticated colour photograph of Betty on it if he had. But assuming they got past the guard, a pass that tallied with her identity card might be useful on Surface; hence the third stolen pass which Philip made out in her real name.
All was ready at last. There was no point in waiting, so they fixed their escape for the next morning.
On his last afternoon, Philip was busy – of which he was glad; having professional problems to think about kept him from getting nervous. He had to dismantle a filter that was giving trouble with the help of one of his men because it was an awkwardly placed job. They were almost enjoying swearing at the thing and wrestling with it. It had been installed by Philip's own firm and his assistant had worked for their biggest rival, which gave the assistant an excuse for some cheerfully disrespectful sarcasm – to which Philip, equally cheerfully, replied in kind.
Absorbed in their work and their cross-talk, they both jumped and almost dropped a heavy casing-panel when a nearby loudspeaker suddenly bellowed in their ears:
'Attention, all personnel. Attention, all personnel. Beehive Red has been ordered. I say again, Beehive Red has been ordered. All personnel with special duties to perform on the ordering of Beehive Red will proceed to them immediately. All other personnel will continue with their normal duties. The following security measures will be observed as from now: exit-guards will double-check all Surface passes that are presented to them, by telephoning the officers who signed them for confirmation that the Surface visits concerned are still essential. Without such confirmation, no holders of Surface passes will be permitted to leave Beehive. I say again…'
Talking far into the night, Philip and Betty still whispered from habit though they were growing hoarse with the effort.
'All that bloody work,' Philip said bitterly, after a couple of hours' discussion had got them nowhere. 'Theft, forgery and hours of bloody sewing. All for nothing… For Christ's sake, I can't sleep. Want some coffee – or a scotch?'
'It had better be coffee. I'd like to get stinking drunk but it wouldn't help.'
Philip turned on the light and got out of bed, stumbling wearily and crossly about the cubicle, burning his fingers on the kettle and swearing. They nursed their cups, sitting side by side on the bed.
‘What a future,' Philip said at last. ‘Me spending all day clambering about air-ducts, and you trying not to get beaten up, till the big quake comes. And then, God knows. Beehive should stand up to it but there's no telling.'
'Climbing about air-ducts,' Betty repeated, suddenly thoughtful.
Philip looked at her, puzzled. 'Keep me occupied, at least.'
'No, it's just… Darling – how big are those air-ducts?' 'The trunk ones – quite big. Anything from sixty centimetres to a metre seventy-five.' 'All the way to Surface?'
He caught her meaning, suddenly, and said 'Jesus!' 'Well?'
'Hang on a moment – let me think… Oh, God, it'd be crazy.' 'Crazier than staying here?'
'Darling, it could take hours… I'd have to work it out on my charts, of course – there'd be fans to bypass, filters to get through – it'd be murder. You'd never make it.'
'Could you?'
'I guess so – probably – but what good's that?' 'If you could, I could. I'm slimmer than you and I'm pretty tough.'
Philip was silent for quite a while before he said: 'We might just make it. You know what, darling? We might just make it.'
Betty took his empty cup from his hands. 'Right, then. Now perhaps we can sleep. And tomorrow, you get studying your charts.'
Two days later, they were ready.
The climb would be very hard work but possible. Even the vertical shafts would be easy to climb because the large ones they would be using were fitted with inspection-ladders. The problems would arise at the filters and fan-installations, of which there were several on the route Philip had planned. Some of the filters could be dismantled and replaced behind them, and all but one of the fans could be bypassed. But however they climbed, there were three places where they would have to emerge from inspection trap-doors into a corridor, and re-enter the duct through another trapdoor on the other side of the obstruction. They could have saved a lot of time by going directly via lift and corridor to the third of these open stretches, but that was ruled out because it could only be reached through areas for which Betty would have needed a special Security pass.
There was only one way to brave the open stretches; Betty must wear her maintenance uniform, and hope not to be seen – or at least not recognized – at those three perilous points.
They could take practically nothing with them apart from their anti-Dust respirators (compulsory at all times, in any case), all the money they had, and such small objects as they could stuff into their pockets. And, of course, the tools in the regulation maintenance kits they both carried – in Betty's case, as part of her disguise.
They debated whether it would be better to make their attempt during the day, or at night. Beehive corridors were swarming with the thousands of new arrivals brought in by the Beehive Red order, during the day; this would make busy maintenance workers less noticeable but on the other hand daytime meant a bigger danger of running into someone who knew Betty. In the end, they decided that four o'clock in the morning was the least risky time. Very few people would be about and anyone they did meet would surely accept that they were engaged in urgent work on the ventilation system; Philip was, after all, the official judge of that urgency.
Leaving their cubicle was a nervous business. Betty was still in her ordinary clothes, with her uniform in the shopping-bag. If they met anyone they knew, they could have been at a private party – but that shopping bag looked odd, they felt, and they were both very conscious of it. In the event, they met no one in the kilometre walk to the trapdoor they needed to start at, but there were still a few anxious minutes while Betty hid in a doorway till Philip had the trap open. They listened and she ran across. As soon as she was up the ladder a couple of metres out of his way, Philip came in after her and secured the trap-door behind them. Fortunately, they could be operated from both sides.
They climbed, against a steady and over-warm down-draught, for about a hundred metres till they reached a horizontal section of the duct. There, awkwardly in a sixty-centimetre space, Betty changed into her uniform – putting her other clothes in the shopping bag which had come with them till they found a suitable place to dump it.
They reached a filter, which took ten minutes to dismantle and replace – ten dirty and choking minutes, for the filter was excessively clogged. Philip caught himself making a mental note to find out why before he remembered that it was no longer his concern.
Just beyond the filter, they came to the first of their three danger-spots. A fan-installation had to be passed by emerging into a dozen metres of public corridor.
'Stay out of sight till I tell you,' Philip whispered, 'and for God's sake keep that torch out.'
He unfastened the trap-door and peered out. The corridor was empty, so he climbed through, propping the trap cover on the floor. Then he walked to the second trap-door and began to unfasten it.
Footsteps.
His heart in his mouth, Philip forced himself to carry oh naturally. A man rounded the corner and stopped, looking at him. He wore the police-blue of Security.
'Hullo,' Philip said, without stopping his work.
'Hullo… What are you up to, sir?'
'Bloody temperature fluctuations on Level Three. Director got me out of bed. There's something clogging a filter somewhere.'
'Tough… I'd better look at your ID, sir. Routine, you know. But everything's tightened up, since Beehive Red.'